(TibetanReview.net, Mar 16, 2009) — Dozens of monks staged a protest around the Sera Monastery in Lhasa’s outskirts on Mar 9, the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising day, reported the South China Morning Posts (Hong Kong) Mar 14, citing locals. As a result, at least half the monastery was now cordoned off and two military vehicles with up to 100 armed police were deployed outside. And Lhasa city was reported to be under severe crackdown ahead of the first anniversary of last year’s Mar 14 uprising protests.

Tibet’s capital Lhasa was under severe crackdown ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising day of Mar 10 and the first anniversary of the Mar 14 protests there. Security forces across Tibet were conducting extensive searches for “suspicious characters” ahead of Mar 14, with mobile phone networks and internet servers being shut down so that activists could not organise any protest.

The report cited the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), which had a staff reporter in Lhasa, as saying police had not spared “a single hotel, guesthouse or local home” in the city from checks. Apart from Westerners, residents from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, as well, even, as Tibetans from outside the city had also been banned.

Those caught were interrogated, even detained, the report cited local hotel and restaurant owners as saying.

The major monasteries were sealed while armed police patrolled night and day. Roadblocks and checkpoints were set up across the city. Police checked rooftop of buildings along the Bakhor street near the Jokhang monastery to ensure that there were no hiding or stockpiling of stones, rocks, bricks and other offensive weapons.

And the exile Tibetan government’s Tibet.net Mar 14 said large number of armed security forces were stationed in the streets, intersections and public places in the city.